1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a memory card in which a nonvolatile semiconductor memory card is mounted, and in particular, to a memory card in which a nonvolatile semiconductor memory having a particular erase block size is mounted, and a method of controlling a semiconductor memory.
2. Description of the Related Art
In some of various memory cards, a nonvolatile memory such as a NAND flash memory comprises a management block in a predetermined area to manage various information related to the memory card (e.g., information to be transmitted to a host, information required to create an address conversion table, and information on defective blocks).
When such a memory card is powered on, the management block is retrieved and the information is read from the management block and used.
For example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 9-198884 (FIG. 1 and the like) discloses a flash memory having a management block storing card management information related to a memory card.
If a nonvolatile memory such as a NAND flash memory has a storage area of a small number of blocks, the management block can be retrieved in a relatively short time. However, as the number of blocks increases consistently with the storage capacity of the nonvolatile memory, a longer time is required to retrieve the management block. Consequently, a response to a host or the like is delayed. This may prevent temporal restrictions specified for the memory card from being met.
It is thus desired to be able to quickly retrieve the management block stored in the memory.